9.12.10

While the frequent flyer is out in the world with his set of manners to get through airports, transports, meetings and back to home – sweet – home in the most efficient way possible, also his wife includes into her behavior a series of habits that make her different than other women. The other women whenever they hear that he’s once again out usually comment “Honestly, I don’t know how do you cope with that” with a mix of admiration and compassion, so this is a piece of truth about how a frequent flyers wife cope with that.

As soon as the FF wife knows about the next impeding flight, she checks if there are any of his appointments (dentist, doctor, hairdresser) and any of their social appointments (dinners, drinks, others) to be rescheduled. If so, she’ll call and it will not be very difficult to explain as anybody on the other side of the phone knows how much frequently your FF flies. If the FF wife doesn’t have a car, the next step is usually to open the fridge to calculate if she needs his help for a heavy grocery shopping before he leaves, but she also considers that when he’s not home the talented chef inside of her goes on strike and she doesn’t mind eating from cans and, if she feels like something warm, calling a pizza delivery. The conclusion is that she will need his strong arms to carry home for sure some laundry detergent and softener as there is the last suitcase to be laundered and all that stuff should better be dry before the next suitcase will come back.

The evening before the flight the FF wife prepares a nice dinner because however good he’ll eat in restaurants over business lunch, it will never be so healthy, tasty and cooked with love so this is going to be his last really proper meal until he’ll be back AND it will also be her last proper meal until he’ll be back, considering the above mentioned plan of eating - whatever – standing - in – front –of – the - fridge. The motivation to make a nice dinner is anyway broader: she wants to have a nice evening together as they won’t see each other for a while, doesn’t matter if that while is short or long, because the whiles you don’t see each other are so, let’s say, frequent, that you learnt to cherish the time you spend together even if it’s a Tuesday evening after a very busy day. Whenever is the time for FF to leave, but usually is awfully early in the morning, the FF wife gets up to brush teeth and kiss goodbye at the door, after having dropped the final check questions: Passport? Ticket? even if both know perfectly that he put them in the pocket of the suit already the night before, while packing. Then the FF leaves, the FF wife closes the door and she’s frequently by herself again. She knows exactly how long it takes to him to go the airport,so she goes back to bed or start her affaires waiting for the his call after the security controls, while he’s walking to the gate. Then she opens the flight status link saved on the bookmarks and she checks if the flight leaves on time, what time it should land, if there is a time zone she goes on the time zone link saved in the bookmarks to calculate from the local landing time her landing time: later she’ll have another couple of glimpses to check if the plane is in time, just to avoid getting worried in case the “I landed Baby” txt doesn’t come at the time she calculated before. If the journey takes more than a flight and the first plane is late, she’ll txt him at which gate it’s the boarding of the second, so he’ll get it straight on the phone as soon as he’ll land. Since the FF is off the plane, the FF wife is under availability like a doctor. In fact, while the FF is out physically, 100% focused on taking care of the business for which he’s travelling, the FF wife is in charge of taking care of him from the distance: theoretically because she’s by herself she could organize her time as she likes, but the FF can require assistance by phone / mail about a wide range of tasks, just to make an example:

- -- Check on the website of the London underground which is the best way to reach Piccadilly because the Circle line suffers massive delay, the Jubilee is closed for works and the Victoria goes only in one direction.

-- Browse restaurants on the tripadvisor to find a nice one in the area of his hotel, as it occurs he’s free for lunch or dinner and since two days he’ just surviving with airplanes food.

- - Remembering about how it was called that lovely nice bar you went together once totally by chance when you were in that city together, because it looks like he’s probably in the same area, and by the way was it close to a pharmacy or a grocery? (mot likely, it was close to a bookstore and it wasn’t that city)

-- Finding what’s the commercial name in the country he’s at moment for Imodium*, because he went to the pharmacy but they didn’t speak English and he didn’t know how to explain THAT problem.

From these examples it might be observed that most of the back office support that the FF wife makes can be substitute nowadays by a smart phone connect with internet, but first, that will never take care of the FF the same way his wife will do, even by means of the same technology, and second, believe it or not, there are still things that Google can’t perform, like:

- - Searching for a forgotten tiny piece of paper on which is written a very important information needed NOW into the drawers, inside the pockets of the suits or even on the floor under the bed.

--Counseling (for the umpteenth time) about how to cure a bad cold with sore throat due of air-conditioning and comfort him that he’ll survive it (once again).

--Recalling him what’s the name of the wife of the guy he’ll have a meeting with and – uhmm - was she pregnant last time we met her or she was just fat?

When the evening comes, it might be a bit lonely for the FF wife. If the FF is in the same timezone it’ll be easy to have a long talk after his dinner, but if he’s further or behind in the rotation of the Earth, that’s the moment to have a long skype talk with other friends, especially those who are also FF wives, so they won’t ask “don’t you feel a bit lonely dear?” questions. For mysterious reason, it can happen that two FF wives can be talking on skype while their FF (who don’t know each other) are sitting working on their blackberries in front of each other in the Frankfurt Airport business class lounge. A FF wife knows that to have a good funny talk after the fridge - standing - dinner and before going to sleep is very good to mitigate the awful sensation of how much the bed seems too big and quite empty without her FF: it really doesn’t matter how frequently a FF wife sleeps alone, the feeling is the same one of any human beings that lays in bed without the partner. The day the FF comes back it’s time for restoring the status quo the FF left: cleaning a bit around the home –sweet home , spending some extra time in the bathroom to get back glossy and smooth, as she enjoyed a bit of laissez- faire on her body (you can't be on availability and spend time streightening your hair at the same time)preparing again a nice dinner, the first proper one since he left for both of them, to have a nice evening and cherish that time together, as they don’t know how soon it will be the next flight.

“Honestly, I don’t know how do you cope with that”

Well, it isn’t easy when he’s out, but when he’s in, we have a lot of romantic moments together, that’s the answer I rarely disclose.

- THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BETWEEN THE 7PM OF THE 8.12.2010 AND THE MORNING OF THE 9.12.2010. IN THE MEANTIME A FF BOARDED AT 12AM LOCAL TIME IN CANCUN TO HOUSTON, TOOK A SECOND FLIGHT FROM HOUSTON TO FRANKFURT WHERE HE LANDED THIS MORNING AT 9 AND HE GOT STUCK THERE AS HIS FLIGHT FROM FRANKFURT TO HOME WAS CANCELLED. HE WAS QUEUEING AND HOPING TO GET A SEAT ON ONE OF THE NEXT 4 FLIGHTS SCHEDULED BETWEEN 1PM AND 6PM...HIS WIFE, BEFORE GOING OUT TO THE SUPERMARKET TO REFILL THE FRIDGE, HAD AN INTUITION: SHE CHECKED THE GERMAN RAILWAYS WEBSITE AND TXTD HIM THE CONNECTIONS BY TRAIN TO HOME. WHILE SHE WAS OUT HE WENT TO THE STATION IN TIME TO CATCH THE TRAIN: IN MEANTIME ALL THE FLIGHTS GOT CANCELLED DUE OF SNOWING CONDITIONS. HE'LL BE HOME AFTER 25H OF JOURNEY GMT TIME AND 37H OF TIME ZONE CROSSING, BUT WITHOUT HER HE WOULD HAVE EVEN MISS THAT TRAIN.

6.12.10

The frequent flyers share plenty of habits. For a while, I was also one of them: not a business frequent flyer but a low cost frequent flyer for sure: once, while boarding on the Friday night ryanair flight from Bergamo to Charleroi the steward asked me if I got sick cause he didn’t spot me on board the week before.

When you catch a plane more often than a bus and the bus that you catch is the one to the airport, indeed, some behaviors become natural to you but makes you different from those who don’t fly very often and those who have never flown before.

Leaving to the airport

You know exactly how long it takes to get to the boarding gate considering it’s that day of the week at that time of the day/night, so once you decide when it the leaving time you don’t look at your watch anymore. You could do all the way from the lift to the stairs to the car/bus/metro with your eyes shut and you know already all the adversities on your path: the escalator from the metro station to the ground level that is never out of service is the one on the left (like in Milano Centrale), the pavement to the shuttle bus has a hole where the wheels of the trolley could get stuck so it’s better to run on the street to catch it, you also know which one of the two shuttle bus companies make an extra stop adding 15 minutes to the length of the journey so you’ll take the other one even if the guy that sells the tickets tells you that it will leave 15 minutes later. When you get on the bus you’ll try to take the seat in front of the rear door, so you ‘ll be the first to get off without getting stuck in the front passengers queue. (If you are going by car to the airport you know already which parking has the biggest amounts of free spots and you ll go straight to the highest level or the lowest underground level (depending on the construction) while the newcomers will hang around the whole first floor after the entrance trying to find the only free spot because of which the light of that level was green.) If you are on the bus, you ‘ll rise your eyes from your free press copy taken before during the metro trip just two minutes before the arrival. You know it’s just to minutes before the arrival because you have your signal in the panorama from the window. My own, arriving to Bergamo Airport, is the sign of the factory CAFFE’ CARISSIMI (that in Italian sounds like either very expensive coffees or the dearest coffees :-D) I even have already saved in the sms draft the message “ I’m at caffé carissimi, will call before boarding” to send to my mom. You’ll get up to be in front of the rear door just in the very second that the bus will stop.

At the airport

You came to the airport with exactly the amount of minutes necessary to complete the necessary operations: check in, boarding control, passport control if you’re flying out of the Schengen Area and boarding on the plane. The only inconvenience that could happen to your efficient procedure is being after one of those who don’t fly very often or, even worse, one of those who have never flown before. You spot them quite easily because they look lost or they have a monumental luggage or they keep the ticket all the time in their hand like they wouldn’t be allowed to walk inside of the airport without evidence that they are passengers. If they fit all three description, then they never took a flight before and you’d better speed up your walk to don’t be waiting in line behind them,

If your travel doesn’t last more than 3 days you always manage to pack yourself in the hand luggage, not only cause with the low costs is for free but mainly because that way you don’t loose time in collecting the luggage at your arrival. But if you have to check in some hold luggage, you have to take into account that someone who doesn’t fly very often or never flown will try to not to pay the extra fee for a luggage weighting 12 kg more than the allowance: initially the passenger will pretend he didn’t have a clue there was any weight allowance for the hold luggage, then he’ll try to ask for the financial understanding of the stewardess because to pay the extra weight will cost him more than the ticket itself, eventually he’ll beg the stewardess to make an exception. Once he’ll understand that the rules are the rules and he must pay for the extra weight, he’ll leave the queue barking some bad words about the stewardess and muttering that he’ll never fly anymore with that company, feeling abused and victim of a pure injustice, without even noticing the swear words thrown at him from the other passenger that he made wait in line an extra 20 minutes.

At the security control you frequent flyer have already placed on the belt your belongings in order of recovery after the control: first the hand luggage, then the tray with laptop and camera, then the tray with your jacket/coat, then the tray with the stuff from your pockets and as last the shoes (not in all the airports is required to take them off but its better to do it before they ask not to loose time at the metal detector). Even more, as a frequent flyer you had already chosen your outfit to travel putting the majority of metal pieces (belt, jewelry, handcuffs, watch, glasses) in the hand luggage bag, not to loose time in taking them off and putting them on during the security control. All those that don’t fly very often or never flown before seem to be immune from the constant information bombing about the items allowed in the hand luggage ( besides weapons and inflammable items, at the Dublin Airport is also specifically prohibited to board catapults), the restrictions for liquids and the undressing procedure (banners written in 18 languages, lcd screen 50 inches that repeat a loop of eloquent descriptive images, airport stuff that repeats constantly shouting like paperboys : please place into the trays any metal item, mobile phones, laptops etc). Inexorably, once at the metal detector, they’ll make it ring at least three times (ops, I didnt know I had to remove the pen from my breastpocket, ops I didnt know I had to take off my belt, ops I didnt know I had to empty out my pockets from the coins) and then they’ll argue with the security officers that a bottle of diet coke isn’t a liquid and they’ll end up, rather than to leave it there, to drink it all at once risking to choke for the bubbles up to the nose. Then they’ll leave muttering they’ll never fly anymore with that company, even if the security is managed by the airport.

After the security control and the eventual passport control, if your time calculation is correct ( and it is correct) and the plane isn’t late (but this doesnt depend from you), you’ll get to your boarding gate while this is already started, so you won’t waste time standing again in line to board. If you’ll have to wait (so the plane is late) you’ll go to work with your blackberry in the lounge you can enter with your silver card, then gold card, then platinum card. There you’ll find other frequent flyers working on the blackberry waiting for their plane delayed. If you are traveling low costs and you are in an airport where food is good, you’ll take the advantage of buying a sandwich and an half bottle of mineral water to bring on board with you rather than buying M&Ms and a small can of seven up on the plane.

If you are a low cost frequent flyer you know there’s no reason to hurry up on the boarding because the last one that get into the shuttle to the plane will be the first one to get inside the plane, regardless of having bought the priority card. You’ll usually walk straight to the seats on the wings next to the emergency exits because they have bigger space for the legs or, alternatively, you’ll seat in the firt row to be the first one to get off.

On the plane

Wheter you sit next to the emergency exits on the wings or in the first row, you know, as it is diplayed by the sticker in front of your seat, that you can’t keep with you the coat and the bag. Those who don’t fly very often and those who’ve never flown look at the stickers and pretend not to see them, even if they get terribly offended when the steward come to pick their coat and bag because it is not allowed to keep them as they would obstruct the emergency passage. They will give to the steward their stuff showing all their displeasure, muttering that they’ll never fly anymore with that company. The thing is that they will fly again , when they will fly, with that company, if it will be again the lowest fare for that trip, you know that, the steward knows that, but they won’t ever admit it.

You frequent flyer understand immediately if your neighbor passenger suffers from anxiety of flying and/or likes to talk a lot, i mean, A LOT. So, unless you are in a particular will to socialize, you are already falling asleep or you take out a 900 pages book with a title so sounding to discourage any attempt of conversation. If the book is written in an unusual language, even better: polish on a geneva – paris, cataln on a bergamo – dublin. If you fly business you’ll probably have next to you another frequent flyer already working off line on his laptop, so you can safely choose if to work or to sleep for the whole flight.

Before the taking off you won’t look at the security measure dance of the crew but you’ll keep quiet while reading your book or newspapers, while those who don’t fly often or have never flown make loudly comments on the concept of “unlikely event”. (If you are in Italy, on a low cost flight and at least one stewardess is pretty, you’ll hear a whole stadium chanting from the bottom rows). After landing, you won’t clap your hands because the fact you are back safely on the ground isn’t a favor but the job of the captain.

Arrival

Once you are arrived to the destination, your belonging to the frequent flyer category is obvious for everyone else: you’ve been already in that airport, you know already the fastest way to the passport control including a quick diversion to the closest toilet and you also know where to go to pick up the luggage. If you don’t have a business mobile, you take out of your wallet a pre-paid sim of that country or you just buy a pre-paid sim at the first newsagency/mobile shop in the airport so you won’t pay a coin in roaming. Before reaching the exit you’ve already send a txt to say you landed to the person who’s caring for you and after the gate you’ll find waiting for you a dear one or somebody with a banner with your name and a logo (how many mr Vodafone and mr Accenture exist in this world?) or, simply, another bus/taxi or train.

Final remarks

What’s the difference between those who don’t fly often and thoe who’ve never flown? The first ones if they recognise a frequent flyer will follow him/her, so they will also be faster.
That’s the way to behave of a frequent flyer but often there is also somebody else living this trip at the same time: the spouses of the frequent flyers. To the next time ;-)

Since we got confirmation on the 20th September that the little Voyager didn’t turn in the write exit position and so the c-section was scheduled on the 6th, me and P. made our best to enjoy this last time of wait: we lived those days as a kind of joyful march to the finishing of a long marathon.

At the Eve of the Voyager’s Arrival my inner tension between the fear for the intervention and the amazement for meeting finally this wonder of life inside of me was overwhelming, but the morning of the 6th I woke up feeling totally abstracted from reality: I felt like it was not going to happen to me. My focus was absorbed by practical things: the nurse instructed me to get a double shower top to toe with a lotion called betadine that made my whole skin yellow like after solarium and my hair a bit red. Then I had to wear a surgery gown indigo color, curiously considered one of the most fashionable in France for this fall/winter season. The contrast between my yellow skin and the purple was already quite electric pop, but after fitting on my legs the white anti-thrombosis stockings with orange edges that the doctor ordered me, I can tell you Lady Gaga would have die to have such an outfit!

When a skinny attendant came to bring me to the surgery room, my nerves broke down and I really felt full of fear while the he tried to make conversation with me in the lift

Attendant: Madame, who’s your doctor?

Me: Doctor G.

Attendant: oh well, doctor G. is full of style! If I would have to make a tour in the surgery room, I’ll definitely go for him.

I was trying to imagine what could be a tour in the surgery room, the skinny attendant with the ears full of Swarovski piercings, me dressed up like Lady Gaga and Doctor G. fully dressed in surgeon green, singing the Marseillaise? but the lift travel was already over. I was probably looking very scared because while I was waiting to be brought to the surgery room, every single doctor, nurse, attendant, janitor and cleaning guy passing by my bed looked at my clinic folder (c-section) and stopped to ask if it was boy or girl, that I shouldn’t be upset at all (especially the cleaning guy kept telling me 3 times that it was a routine operation). The assistants of my doctor came to pick me showing off his English (Oh Madame I’m so glad to speak English with you, I don’t have a lot of occasions of practice here in the surgery room!). Eventually Doctor G. entered the room singing, as his usual, alors alors ma petite Valentina quelle musique pour vous auourd’hui? The anesthetics was already going in me so I just said “rock”, without thinking about it. Well, doctor, anesthetist and assistant blew out of their lungs their rock repertory and I didn’t even realize the operation was already ongoing until Doctor G. stopped the choir and said “on y va” . here we go, soon I was going to meet our daughter: few seconds later I heard the little quiet cry of a baby, and straight after a perfect small face appeared on my shoulder, all wrapped in a blue blanket, with just a little perfect tiny hand getting out. I was overwhelmed, I just told her Piccola, piccola, and then they brought her out to P.. When a couple of hours later the same skinny attendant came to pick me back to my room, he naturally asked:

-Madame, how it was the tour?

And finally I came back to P. and Beatrice. He told me those words I won’t forget in our lifetime; she was sleeping, so small but so perfect, in the same white & yellow sweater my mother knitted for my birth, I wasn’t able to touch her cause I couldn’t lift myself high enough from my bed, but I was looking at her beautiful face through the plexiglass of the crib. Later in the days at the hospital I carried on taking confidence with this small person that I have the joy to accompany through life, learning from the nurses all these actions for taking care of a baby…I can tell you that I felt for the first time filled with the authority of being a mother and fully self confident on Sunday, when the pediatrician given her not requested opinion on some matter and I thought, looking at her, YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MY DAUGHTER!

The economic perspective for my generation of Italians isn’t good.We grew up believing that by studying a lot and being ready to work hard, we would have rightly earned our living. Even more: we were believing that exploiting our talents and skill we would have got personal satisfaction and also make a contribution to improve, on a small or big scale, the society around us, our Belpaese. But something very big must have gone wrong: today the majority of us ends up considering what to choose between living in Italy (with a ridiculous revenue compared to the amount of work, meaning to postpone the economic independence from parents and the creation of one’s own family) and go abroad in search of a chance, becoming an expat, a new emigrant, with the trolley suitcase and always logged on skype, irreplaceable modern tool to keep virtually in touch with one’s own roots.

Among the expats there are also those like me, that leave to allow the person they share their life with to make a career, because in Italy they would both work for little money, often in poorly exciting jobs, while going abroad one of the two has for sure the great chance of a cool job with earnings much higher than the two italian salaries for 30 years old people combined.In these cases, maths makes obvius the advantage of espatriate, love gives the courage to do so.Certainly also those like me seek for a professional fulfillment abroad, but the primal reason we are abroad, is, without fake modesty, the unselfishness toward one’s own love: isn’t always clear what I am doing here, but why I am here, yes it is.